


Ghosts That We Knew

by ohstardustgirl



Series: Rogue 'Verse [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, Battle Couple, Drama, Established Relationship, Everybody Lives, F/M, Feels, Married Couple, Parents, Post-ESB, Post-Scarif, Protective!Cassian, Rebelcaptain - Freeform, Second Death Star, back from the dead, fierce mama jyn, freedom from Imperial oppression, missions to homeworlds, more tags to come, wartime pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-12 13:19:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11162664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohstardustgirl/pseuds/ohstardustgirl
Summary: 4 years post-Scarif, 6 months prior to the Battle of Endor.As Jyn and Cassian face a life-changing decision, the war becomes even more personal as someone once thought dead comes back into their lives and they are faced with a mission to a world that will drag up even more ghosts.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 4 years post-Scarif  
> 1 year post-ESB  
> 6 months prior to Battle of Endor

_Finally_ , Cassian thought as he rounded the corner with his blaster raised, _we're getting somewhere._ Artificial lighting strung along the tops of the walls cast a blue glow that didn’t quite reach the darkest shadows and made it difficult to see where the tunnels split off, but it was better than the last ten minutes when he had wandered in complete darkness.

Kes Dameron cursed down the comms, the words muffled by static, followed by the unmistakable beeping of a plasma grenade being charged. The Pathfinders were providing an adequate distraction, allowing Cassian to slip through the damp tunnels with minimal resistance. Underneath the distant echo of blaster fire and shouting was the running of water high above the tunnels and the steady drips and trickling water down the black stone walls. 

The current operation was only possible because of the intel the Rebellion had received via an informant within this particular cell of the Benzan pirates, which was who Cassian now hoped to find. Draven had insisted it wouldn't be a big loss if the informant wasn't pulled out alive, but Cassian wasn't about to write off an innocent man quite so easily. The information the man had provided had been far too useful due to the pirates' mercenary dealings with the Empire. 

"Captain," Dameron shouted down the comms. "We're winning here, but your droid has spotted Imperial troops in orbit." More blaster fire echoed. "Clock's ticking."

Cassian turned a corner and shot a pirate in the shoulder, sending the man spinning as his blaster fell from his hands. "I haven't found him yet, Kes."

"Well, hurry up," shouted Dameron. "That wife of yours will kill me if you get stuck down a tunnel with Stormtroopers blocking the entrance."

Cassian cursed as he hit a dead end. He did _not_ need to think of Jyn right now. He spun, only to find a blaster in his face. It was held by the shaking arm of a gaunt, grey haired man. He had one brown eye - the jagged scar that crossed from under the left side of his jaw to his right temple explained the lack of the other. The arm not holding a blaster had an electronic slaver bracelet around its thin wrist.

"Give me a lever long enough..." His voice was barely audible over the water and explosions, and the accent was something Cassian didn’t recognise.

"And a _fulcrum_ on which to place it." Cassian replied. The man - Grange, as he had called himself during their trading of information across the galaxy over the last two months - visibly deflated, as if the only energy he had left had gone into raising that blaster and was now gone. Cassian lowered his own weapon and spoke into his comm without taking his eyes off his informant. "Dameron - objective attained. I'm on my way out. Keep the path clear." 

“I’ll do my best – just make it quick.” 

Grange slumped against the wall, and Cassian kneeled to pull a lock pick from his own boot and began working at the man’s bracelet. The pirates would track him the whole way back to the base if it wasn’t removed. “We need to run – can you make it?”

“You said you would get me to the Alliance?” There was a desperate look on his gaunt face.

“If I can get you out of here in one piece, then yes – you’ll be safe there.” Cassian rose and hauled Grange's arm around his shoulders, not trusting the man’s strength or lack thereof. “Keep your blaster raised if you can, once we get to the end of the tunnels we’ll need the cover.”

The sounds of blaster fire grew louder and louder and the rushing of the waterfall above could be felt through his feet as Cassian hurriedly retraced the steps that had led him deep into the tunnels. Grange’s weight on his side was slowing him, and they both stumbled along in the darkness, but Cassian wouldn’t leave him behind. He knew he was back were he started when he spotted the bodies of the pirates he had met on his way in.

“Kes, we’re coming out – cover would be good.” He spoke into his comm as he peered round the entrance. The rain was coming down hard, and the ground looked muddy and treacherous. 

More blaster fire. “We’ve got you, Captain – go straight for the ship and we’ll keep them off your backs.”

Cassian took a breath and steeled himself. Grange leaned a little heavier on him. “Almost there – whatever you have left in you, it needs to be enough to get us to the ship, got it?”

Grange gripped at Cassian’s jacket and pulled himself a little straighter. Cassian took that as a sign to run. 

He sprinted, practically pulling Grange with him. The informant’s legs moved but not fast enough, and the mud was just another thing to slow Cassian down. His feet stuck and slid as blasters shot over his head. The rain blinded him and made the grip on his own pistol slippery as he tried to aim high at the pirates in the hills overhead. 

The Pathfinders didn't let him down, and blasters fired and bodies fell as Cassian hauled Grange's dead weight onto the ship. The informant fell in a heap, eye rolled back in his head, and Cassian pulled him into a position where he could at least be strapped in.

"He ok?" asked Kes as he and the other Pathfinders stumbled on board.

Cassian checked the man’s pulse, and it fluttered under his fingers. He reached for the medkit and pulled out a hypospray which he pressed against Grange's neck. He was exhausted, dehydrated, and half-starved, but alive. "Yeah. He will be."

"Ready to go home? I know I am."

Physically, home was Home One, wherever it was currently orbiting. In reality home was the pregnant wife he had left there two weeks ago, before they'd even had time to deal with the fact that two were going to become three.

_"What are we... do you want this?" He had asked when the silence in their quarters had become too much. She had watched him pack, stone-faced, and now he was ready to leave for the mission which she was meant to have been a part of. Jyn had shrugged, her shoulders as tight and high as they had been since the night before when she had first told him. She had been quiet, and so had he, the knowledge wrapped heavily around each of them like shrouds keeping them apart. They had tried to talk but the words wouldn't come, so they had both tossed and turned their way through a wretched night and now it was morning and time had run out._

_"I don't know," she whispered and was interrupted by his comms; K-2SO advising it was time to leave. "Look, you should go. I'll - we'll talk about it when you get back. There's still time to decide."_

_He had pulled her close, the hard line of tension in her spine making her like steel in his arms, but after a moment she softened slightly and gripped the front of his jacket. Cassian pressed his lips to hers, a promise, and left. "I'll see you in a few days."_

A few days had stretched into two weeks, which at first had consisted of nothing _but_ time to think as they waited to make their move on the pirates, and now that they were on the journey home he couldn't think of a single thing to say to her. The anxiety clawed its way out of the box in his mind in which he had hidden it, and started scratching at his guts. 

He sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face before strapping himself in. "Yeah. Let's go home."

 

 

Jyn breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth to lessen the nausea that rolled in her gut. It was a familiar sensation now, though the medication provided by the med-droids was supposed to have stopped it. This was less to do with her changing hormones and more to do with raw nerves.

It wasn't that she was the type to stand around just waiting for Cassian to show up when a mission had separated them, but given her current circumstances she found herself unable to decide what else to do with the anxious energy running through her. 

She had spent two lonely weeks tying herself in knots, thinking of what ifs. The mindless maintenance work she had been assigned to while she feigned illness hadn't been enough to distract her wandering mind from daydreams of a beautiful brown-eyed baby and terrors about the Empire taking them away from her. Her already fast heart beat sped up at the sight of a medical team running towards the docked ship, and she held her breath until Cassian stepped out - tired and scruffy, but whole. The rest of the hangar faded into a blur in the background because the only thing that mattered was him.

"You're a week late." She couldn't stop the smile from pulling at her lips, nerves be damned.

His mouth quirked in the half smile that had stolen her heart four years before as he walked towards her. "When has either one of us ever come home on time?" He reached out to tangle his fingers with hers, and she could see a hesitation there that he hadn't shown since they had first taken the step to be together. She squeezed his fingers between hers, and tugged him into her space, only inches between them. Jyn wanted nothing more than to pull him close to her and bury her face in his chest while he held her tight, but neither of them were much for public displays of affection beyond the subtle touch of hands or the briefest of kisses. "Are you - ?

"I'm fine. I'm still - we're-" She huffed at how hard the words were. "Did Dameron buy that I was just sick?"

He nodded. "Yeah. He'll probably ask you about it though." He lifted her hands between them and clasped them against his chest, and she felt the shuddering breath he took. "Jyn, I..."

She shook her head, and cursed the tears that started to sting her eyes. "Not here." She squeezed his hands in hers. "Tonight, when we're alone?"

Cassian looked exhausted, and she wanted nothing more than to pull his feelings from him. _Tell me what you want, what you're thinking._ But he pressed his lips to her forehead for a long moment in spite of the audience in the hangar, and broke away with a sigh. "Tonight, then. I've missed you."

She threw their mutual cautiousness to the wind and leaned up on her toes to kiss him. He softened against her and for the first time in two weeks she felt grounded. 

They jumped apart when Kes Dameron called out Cassian's name as he jogged towards them from the ship. 

"Captain, your man is awake and talking - he's asking for you, Jyn."

Cassian shot a confused look between them. "He's asking for Jyn?" At her questioning glance he explained, "Grange, the informant."

Jyn knew about him, having originally been part of the mission plan but the name meant nothing more. Before Cassian could caution her she headed for the ship, hand on her blaster. 

"I think he's delirious," Kes said from behind her. "But he keeps asking if you're here."

Jyn walked up the ramp into the ship. A medic she recognised was kneeling beside the gaunt stranger taking his vital signs. As she stepped forward, Grange's one eye lit up and his stubbled jaw trembled. He tried to push himself up from where he sat against the bench but the medic pushed his shoulders back gently.

"Jyn, my Jyn?" his voice was a rattle, bone-dry.

Jyn's stomach dropped and her heart jumped into her throat.

She tried to see past the scars and lines, the white-grey hair shorter than she had ever seen on him. His cheeks were sunken and covered in white stubble, his arms thin and wiry. He chuckled deliriously, and closed his eyes.

"Jyn... my Stardust. I found you, at last."

She could only shake her head as her heart fluttered in her chest. The edges of the hold went grey and her legs wobbled. Cassian was steady at her back by the time her vision righted itself again, and he held her by the arms. She could hear Cassian's voice full of concern, muffled as if he was miles away instead of holding her up, but all she could see was the familiar face in front of her.

_"Papa."_


	2. Chapter 2

_My father is dead. My father is a bastard._

_My father came_ back.

Jyn sat on a chair opposite Galen's bed. Hours had passed, during which he had been pumped full of fluids and stims and nutrients, and now his skin was pinker and his eye clearer. She wanted to stare at him and drink him in, but every time she tried her head would spin and so she could only steal glances.

K-2SO stood outside the door to the private room, ready to intervene, and Cassian was a sentinel by her side. He had urged her to rest back in their quarters until Galen was fit to speak and as much as she had wanted to argue she found she didn't have the energy. Her dizziness and nausea had reminded her that this wasn't just _her_ body anymore.

She shivered in the temperature controlled air of the med-bay. She had stripped down to her tank top to help with her dizziness but now the cool recycled air was starting to chill her bones. She watched the goose bumps rise on her skin, and wished the discomfort was more of a distraction. 

This was a mistake, it had to be - Galen Erso was dead. It couldn't be him, lying there, scarred and almost unrecognisable but _alive._

The med-droid had confirmed it with a simple blood test. This man was Jyn's father as far as DNA went. K-2SO gave the odds of the tests being wrong as minuscule, but the odds of Galen Erso being alive were just as impossible. 

"I can't begin to guess what you must be thinking," said Galen. "There are days I can barely believe it myself."

"Start with Eadu," said Cassian with gentleness, and Jyn thought he hid the pain well. He was haunted by what had happened there, and by Galen - as much as any other ghost from his past, something only she was privy to. Her love and absolution had done nothing to ease it, and he often woke desperate and sweating more often because of Eadu than of Scarif. "How did you survive?"

"The blasters, the bombs... I don't know how I was still alive when the scavengers came. The pirates. They thought they'd rescued themselves a valuable Imperial, so they fixed me up and nursed me back to health. After investing so much in keeping me alive they were less than impressed to find that I couldn't remember anything. All I had was my knowledge of engineering, even if I didn't know where it came from." 

"You didn't remember who you were? Nothing at all?" Jyn thought that maybe that would have been a blessing, though the thought of him being kept as a slave without even his memories for company made her stomach roll.

"Not at first. It was a long time before I was even awake enough to realise I had forgotten. Gradually things came back to me... glimpses of the past. A beach with black sand, first."

Jyn watched his hands clutch at the bed sheets. His voice broke as he spoke next. “And then I remembered Lyra, and that day – and everything started coming back to me, like a wall had fallen down.” 

She felt his gaze on her but she couldn’t return it. He was the one person in the galaxy who understood what it meant to have lost Lyra Erso, and it was something she never thought she would be able to share. The novelty made her uneasy.

“What about the Alliance?” Cassian asked. "How were you so sure Jyn would be here?"

“I remembered Eadu, and seeing you there, Jyn. And I thought that perhaps you were still with the Alliance. The Benzans were not as smart as they thought – apart from the slave bracelet, they got careless with securing me. They relied on me too much to fix their technology. Building a communication device was easy, and as they didn’t consider me a threat I was able to pass on their most valuable information once I had the right contact.”

“And we’re thankful that you did,” said Cassian. “You’ve helped a great many people.”

“Not enough, to make up for what I've done.” He whispered, and Jyn was finally able to look at him. There was pain etched on his face, guilt in the tear in his eye. Her heart ached in a way it hadn't in a few years, since she had forgiven him and buried him. "But there's more that I can do. There's a planet in the Outer Rim where the Imperials have set up factories and displaced the inhabitants. The Benzans set up a false deal with the local rebel cell to provide weapons and bombs for an uprising - but the pirates took the credits and ran." Galen shook his head. "They've been left with nothing but counterfeit blasters and rocks."

"Where was this?" asked Cassian.

"The planet was called Fest," said Galen. "It was snowing, and the towns were in the mountains. It was only a few weeks ago."

To anyone else, Cassian's expression would have seemed unchanged. Jyn knew him better, and caught the flutter of the muscles in his jaw and how his eyes flicked to her briefly. He talked about Fest only with her, in their quiet private moments when memories of his family and the traditions he grew up with would slip from him. It had seemed he was finally learning to talk about it with affection instead of pain.

"If you were brought there, would you be able to find the rebels again?"

Galen looked thoughtful, as if replaying his memories of the planet, and nodded. "The settlements were not policed by the Empire, probably because they weren't considered a threat. False documents and a search of their ship was enough to get the pirates permission to dock there. But I doubt these people will be open to trusting outsiders again."

"And the factories?" Jyn asked. "What are they building?"

"The locals claimed weapons, but it's more likely to be service droids and ship parts." Galen looked earnest, brow creased. "Taking them out would be quite a blow against the Empire."

"Yeah, it would be." Cassian's voice was quiet when he spoke, and Jyn could see his mind working through memories and making plans. Her vision threatened to go grey at the edges again at the thought of what he was probably going to do. All she had wanted for the last two weeks was to have him home, make the biggest decision of their lives, and curl up in their bed and lock the galaxy out. Here was her family, more whole than ever, and once again the Imperials were on the verge of taking part of it away from her. She shut her eyes and breathed through her nose.

Cassian's comm chirped. "I have to go report in to Draven." He reached out and squeezed Jyn's shoulder, and let the weight of his hand linger. "You're staying here?"

She nodded, though the thought of being alone with her father for the first time made her throat dry, and she toyed with her kyber crystal pendant. "Will you tell Draven who he is?"

Cassian looked between the two and shook his head. "Draven doesn't need to know who you really are, not yet. And Kay will wipe the DNA test from the medical records."

Jyn placed her hand over his on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze in thanks. She tried to smile for him, something reassuring and something she hoped would take away the tension in his jaw, and he tried to do the same before he turned and left.

"Your mother's necklace," Galen whispered with awe in his voice and Jyn looked down to where she toyed with the crystal. "When it wasn't on her, I assumed - I hoped - "

"She gave it to me before she went back for you." Jyn pulled the necklace over her head and passed it to him. "I only have half of it, now."

His shaking fingers ran over the edges of the crystal, finding whatever familiar indents and lines remained from the original. His face had a look of wonder. How many times had he touched that crystal while holding Lyra, felt it pressed against his flesh? "What happened to the other half?"

"Cassian has it."

Galen's eyebrows knit together as he passed the necklace back to her. "Captain Andor?"

"It's...our version of wedding jewellery." Jyn felt her cheeks flush with heat. It was an offering, a piece of information handed out like a gift to open the door for him. He was a stranger, and he was her father, and her natural instinct to shut him out conflicted with the eight year old girl inside her who still longed for her father's love.

"Oh. Oh, _Jyn._ " His hand covered hers on the bed, the crystal warm in her palm. "There's so much I've missed. So much they've taken from us."

Jyn felt her eyes sting with tears as the reality hit her - her father, alive and mostly in one piece - was here in front of her, holding her hand. They had taken twenty years of _this_ from her, and from him.

She thought of her baby, and swore they wouldn't take anything else from her.

“We have time, now." She squeezed his hand before she rose and made her way to the door on shaking legs. "You should rest, we can talk more tomorrow. Kay, will you stay here with him?”

If the droid could have made a scoffing sound, he would have. “It’s hardly the best use of my abilities, Jyn.”

“You’re a security droid, aren’t you? Be security.”

 

 

 _"Fest?"_ Draven's eyebrows raised.

"The intel is recent, only a few weeks old." Cassian kept his face neutral despite the turmoil in his head. His stomach was rolling, and a cold sweat tickled his spine at the memories the conversation with Galen had uprooted. _The factories, the settlements, the rebels throwing rocks and planting homemade bombs._

_And the Empire's awful retaliation against the insurgency that wiped out entire families._

Davitz Draven was known for his quick but careful thinking, his ability to take a tangle of threads and weave them together into a clear story. His long silence was therefore worrying as he leaned his elbows on his desk and tapped his finger against his top lip in thought. "Do you believe Grange?"

"There's no reason for him to lie." Cassian unfolded his hands and fought the urge to mimic Draven's fidgeting. "He's done nothing but help us so far."

Draven leaned back in his chair. His face was pale and Cassian thought he had aged ten years in the last four. "The last time the Empire set up factories in the Outer Rim, they were building the Death Star."

Cassian let out a shaky breath, feeling the worry he had been trying to deny for months claw at his chest. The spectre of the possibility of another planet killer had haunted Intelligence for the last few months. As before there was nothing concrete, and Cassian had hoped desperately that the connections they were seeing were just figments of their imaginations. "And with the increased recruitment at the academies, and the rumours intercepted on Coruscant, this is all starting to feel very familiar."

"Take a team, your choice. Bring Grange with you. I'll trust you to decide the best course of action to take depending on what you discover." Draven sat forward and rested his elbows on his desk. "If this really is happening again, I want every possible advantage we can get over the bastards."

It wasn't an order Cassian would argue with.

 

When he made it to their quarters, his mind was an exhausted haze. Jyn sat on the edge of their bed, half undressed and looking as dazed as he felt.

"You're going, aren't you? To Fest?" She asked once the door had closed behind him.

"Tomorrow, once I have a team together. Draven wants me to take Galen."

She rose from the bed and stepped towards him, tiny in her bare feet. "I'm going with you."

"No. Not a chance, Jyn." He stripped off his jacket and tossed it on the bed as she came into his space, his own frustration flaring hot across his cheeks. "You're not thinking straight, not right now."

"Cassian, you're not doing this without me. I know how much this means to you."

"And the baby?"

He watched her swallow, her jaw tight. "I can protect us. You can, too. We always have each others backs, right?"

He sighed. "Jyn, we haven't even talked... we haven't decided what we're doing."

She stepped close to him and put her hands flat on his chest. "If neither of us wanted this, it would be an easy decision." She looked tired, he thought, overwhelmed. "I want this."

"Me too, Jyn. More than anything." He meant it, and the relief that washed over him at the confession took him by surprise.

"So are we deciding, or are we letting the Empire make the choice for us?"

He covered her hands with his. His chest had ached with how much he had missed her over the last two weeks; her absence what he imagined a missing limb would be like. "It's not that simple, and you know it. How can we keep them safe in the middle of all this? How can I keep both of you safe?"

"Do we give up without even trying? Let them take something else from us?" There it was, the _need_ , the stubborn defiance that had stolen his heart so quickly, even from the first moment he had laid eyes on her in the war room on Yavin IV. It told him she would go to hell and back to get what she wanted. "If that's what we're doing, then I should just go to medical right now and that will be the end of it." She squeezed her eyes shut as if she were in pain and he felt it like a blade in his gut.

"That's not what I want." He took her face in his hands and ran his thumbs over her cheeks. In his heart he knew there were only two options - terminate now, or bring another life into the middle of a war, something precious that could be taken from them sooner or later or maybe never. "I don't want them to ever take anything from us again."

"I've had nightmares about it," she admitted as she reached up to card her fingers through his hair and he felt his spine melt. "I never thought I would have wanted this, or even considered it until after the war, but now that it’s happening…" 

“I know.” Cassian pressed his lips to her forehead and breathed her in, pulled her body close against his. _After the war, maybe, someday, when it’s safe,_ was what they had both agreed whenever the topic of children had come up. It had always seemed like a fantasy. Something they would never deserve. But now it was real and it was here, more than just a dream for the future, and Cassian couldn’t deny the primal _need_ he now felt to protect it. “I want to try, Jyn. But I want you safe too.”

"I wouldn’t have made it through today without you." Her voice vibrated against his ribs and he felt the iron resolve in it. “I'm not letting you do this alone, Cassian. We go to Fest, and get one more blow against them. After that - I stay here. No more risks.”

“Jyn-” He growled. He wanted her by his side more than anything, but Fest was ice and blood and grief and death, and she was _life_ and he wanted her far away from it.

“You can’t stop me, you know. If you leave, I’ll follow.”

Cassian tipped her face up, fingers under her chin, and sighed at the steel in her expression - eyes bright, jaw locked, lips pouted. He fell in love with her all over again in an instant and could deny her nothing. That same determination, he knew, would go into protecting their new family. “No one could. Just promise me-”

“I promise. I just want to be there for you.”

He softened as she smiled and pulled him down for a kiss. All the tension of the last two weeks melted away, from his shoulders down to his feet, and staying upright suddenly took great effort. Jyn scratched her fingertips against his scalp and her mouth was wonderfully soft and pliant beneath his. She sighed against him as they parted, her own eyes now calm and tired. 

"You're exhausted, love.” Her voice was a lullaby. "Come to bed with me.”

They stripped off and showered together. He held her hips and let his thumbs draw across her lower belly as the warm water sprayed over them. They dressed in sleep clothes and curled together in their bed. Cassian's hand swept soothingly up and down her back, and she buried her face in the warmth of his neck and breathed him in as he did her. _Safe. Home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, commenting and subscribing so far! It all means so much <3
> 
> I really hope everything reads ok!
> 
> Chapter 3 is probably about a week away.


	3. Chapter 3

"The Outer Rim? Why me?" Bodhi asked, after looking around to ensure that Cassian wasn't speaking to someone behind him. As much as Bodhi had learned in the last four years, he knew there were better pilots within earshot of where they stood on the tech deck, and those that weren't better at flying were at least much more experienced in ground combat. 

"Because I trust you," Cassian had said in explanation, as if it were really that simple. He clapped his hand on Bodhi's shoulder with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes and a look that suggested he maybe hadn't slept much. "You'll be fine, Bodhi. We leave in two hours - pack for cold weather."

"How cold?"

"A lot colder than Jedha." Cassian called back over his shoulder as he walked off.

Two hours and a visit to Supplies later, he found Jyn and Cassian already on the ship stowing away their packs. It was a battered, small freighter once used for smuggling spice, recovered by the Alliance who couldn’t afford to turn up their noses at such things. Bodhi’s hands itched to get at the controls and under the engine of something so patchwork and customised after years of Imperial cargo ships and Alliance transports. Four hatches in the bay hid a small bunk behind each and Bodhi laid claim to his own by tossing his bag full of layers and coats onto it. Everything was dark and dingy, worn and rusted, in contrast to the blinding, sterile whiteness of Home One.

“Is it just us?” he asked Jyn as she emerged from her own bunk, feeling a little horrified that he would potentially be their only back up considering how often they tended to throw themselves into chaos.

“Not quite,” she replied and pulled down the shutter to her bunk as Cassian hauled himself up the ladder to the cockpit. “What exactly did Cassian tell you?”

“That he needed a pilot to get you to the Outer Rim, and to bring warm clothes?”

Jyn rolled her eyes. “So he left out all the important bits.” She glanced towards the ramp, and Bodhi thought her face paled slightly.

At the sound of K-2SO’s heavy metal footsteps stepping up the ramp and into the ship, Bodhi turned, and saw a ghost. A ragged, one-eyed, shaven-headed ghost whose mouth gaped open at the sight of him as if _he_ were the one who had come back from the dead. 

"Is that..?" Jyn nodded at him, a little tired looking, and Bodhi thought he understood then why Cassian had asked for him for this mission. "How?"

She reached out and squeezed his arm. “It’s really him, Bodhi. Sorry for the lack of warning, I’m still trying to process it myself.”

Galen stopped on the ramp, and Kay lumbered on ahead with an armful of supplies which he dumped unceremoniously on the floor outside the bunks, and his hands and feet clanged on the ladder up to the cockpit.

"Bodhi?" Galen’s voice was soft, sand in a breeze.

In four years, Bodhi had travelled a broad spectrum of emotions about Galen Erso - gratitude for setting him on the path that led him here, rage about Jedha, anger on behalf of Jyn. They had bonded strongly, like a brother and sister trying to find the measure of one father, each with their own puzzle pieces.

Galen reached out and clamped Bodhi's arms in his grip. He looked wretched. He had always looked haunted, like someone who wanted to waste away but was being kept alive by something outside of himself. The missing eye, the scars and deep wrinkles - Bodhi took it all in from close up and wondered how he had recognised Galen at all. 

"Look at you," he said, awe in his voice. "You made it. You saved all of us."

Bodhi flushed hot, and stammered and blinked repeatedly in case he was seeing things. _Hero_ wasn’t a title he had ever gotten comfortable with. “Um… what?” He looked back at Jyn who had crossed her arms over herself and flicked her glance between him and Galen. “How?”

"Plenty of time for that on our way," sighed Galen as he gave Bodhi’s arms one more squeeze. “What can I do for you, Jyn?”

Bodhi could feel tension running from her, in the line of her shoulders and the way her fingers dug into her own arms. There was awkwardness and unfamiliarity hanging thick in the air between the three of them. “There’s a bunk for you, over there. Pack away your bag and then come up to the cockpit.”

Cassian called to Bodhi from above. He wasn’t sure his feet would get him up the ladder, and he kept looking back over to Galen who was ducking into his bunk, but Jyn shoved him gently from behind.

 

"I should be going with you." said K-2SO. 

"Sorry, Kay. As much as I would love to have you watching our backs," Cassian would have liked for Kay to be Jyn's shadow for the duration of the mission, and possibly the next seven months or more. "The locals aren't going to think about speaking to us if you're there. And we'll have an Imperial search of the ship to get through, unless you want to be dismantled and hidden in the smuggling compartments?"

Kay made a mechanical noise of disgust. "I'd sooner cling to the outside of the ship."

"I'm sure you'll survive on base. The Pathfinders will need you."

"Oh good. Days on a ship with trigger-happy soldiers, no doubt going somewhere muddy," K-2SO slumped. "Dismantlement would be preferable."

“Well, then you are spoiled for choice.” Cassian flicked switches on the panel and turned as Bodhi’s head popped up through the hatch. The pilot hauled himself through, followed by Jyn.

“Thanks for the warning, Cassian, really,” Bodhi grumbled as he pushed to his feet. “My heart is in my stomach.”

Cassian shrugged and reached out his hand to help Jyn up. She rolled her eyes but smiled and took it anyway. “Would you have believed me?”

“No, I would have thought Intelligence work had finally made you snap. Are you my co-pilot, Kay?”

“I’m not coming. Apparently I’m too much of a liability.” The droid grumbled as he stepped down into the hatch.

“Finally, you’ve caught on.” Jyn said as she strapped herself into the passenger bench at the back of the cockpit. 

Bodhi slipped into the pilot's seat, dark eyes wide and excited as he took in the controls. Cassian hadn't doubted that Bodhi would bond instantly with the ship; he always did no matter how much he refused to believe in his own ability. Within minutes the engine flared to life and Bodhi chattered confidently to ground control, giving orders for the hangar to be airlocked as Galen stepped up into the hatch. Cassian reached out a hand to help him too, and he took it more willingly than Jyn had. 

"Have you programmed coordinates already, Cassian?"

"Yes," Cassian strapped himself in beside Bodhi once Galen and Jyn were secure in the back. "We're going to Fest."

"Fest?" squawked the pilot before recovering himself. "Oh, I mean, isn't that where you're from?"

"Yes, Bodhi." Cassian busied himself with the co-pilot controls. He didn't want to look at either Bodhi or Galen and see their reactions. "Just get us there in one piece and I'll worry about the rest."

 

 

Cassian smiled at the sight of Jyn curled up in their bunk. She had disappeared an hour before, claiming she was going to clean her blasters, but must not have made it any further than getting the cleaning kit out of her pack. He enjoyed the view for a moment - her hair mussed and loose, eyelashes dark against her pale cheeks, brow smooth and breathing steady. 

It was as if some new part of his brain had flared to life the moment she had told him she was pregnant, a warning system, a constant alarm in the back of his mind telling him to protect and watch her as if his life depended on it. For now, it was muted, and his chest eased a little. He pulled what he needed from his own bag under the bed and left her to her rest.

Cassian set himself up at the small bench in the cargo area and laid out the scan docs they would need to get them through the security check. A married couple, returning to his homeland to visit family - simple and almost true. He attached the docs to his datapad and began building false identities for himself and Jyn. It didn’t take long before Rafa and Nora Ancar had fully fleshed out histories, including records of employment in the Imperial Civil Registries Office on Coruscant, where they met and fell in love.

Galen and Bodhi would have to test out the smuggling compartments. There wasn’t time to create new identities for them too.

He raised his head at the sound of someone climbing down the ladder. Galen appeared, and stretched out his back when he reached the bottom. The four of them had sat in near silence at the start of the journey; Bodhi had chattered nervously and Jyn had talked easily to him in the way she always did. Four people in need of very different conversations trapped on a small ship was always going to lead to discomfort. Cassian needed to talk to Galen but had no desire to be cornered into an awkward conversation about Jyn.

"Captain, I was hoping to find Jyn." Galen said as he approached.

"She’s sleeping at the moment."

“She seems a little overwhelmed,” Galen sighed and sat across from him. “Though you would know better than me.”

“She is,” Cassian agreed, though he wasn’t about to share the other reason for her current exhaustion. “Give her time. It’s a lot for her to take in.”

Galen nodded. “But she’s alright?”

Cassian thought of Jyn’s smile the night before, her passionate desire to spit in the face of the Empire by bringing new life into the galaxy, and all the times she had spoken of her father with love. “She is, or she will be. Believe me it takes more than this to knock Jyn down.”

Galen laughed quietly. "She always was more like her mother: stubborn with a will of steel.” Cassian thought it an apt description. Galen looked at his hands for a moment before speaking again. “Captain, Jyn told me about your marriage. I have so little right to comment on her life, but I know that you're a good man at a time when so few are."

"I wasn't," Cassian honestly didn’t believe that he had been, when they first met, and someday he would have to tell Galen that he had been in the scope of his sniper rifle on Eadu. "But she made me one."

"Regardless, thank you. It’s easier, knowing that she didn’t end up alone." 

_She was for a long time, Cassian thought, you didn’t completely protect her from that._ “Tell me more about what you saw on Fest. Names, places, Imperial security.” Cassian asked to shift the focus of the discussion.

Galen ran his hand over his chin. “The only name I remember is _Bazan_. He was young, younger than the three of you. He did a lot of the bartering on behalf of the rebels, though there was an older man who kept a much calmer head in discussions.”

Cassian couldn’t place the name, it didn’t trigger any spark of recognition. He didn’t know what he had been expecting, his own memories of Fest hazy and mostly tied to his parents. The planet had lost meaning when both of them were gone.

“Is it true?” Galen asked when Cassian didn’t respond. “That’s where you’re from?”

“It was. I don’t remember very much of it, I was only a child. When I left, the people there were still separatists fighting against the dominance of the Core Worlds, though I suppose the Empire was really ruling even then.”

“Something I know all too well from my own homeworld, unfortunately, though I was much older when I left. Your first home always stays with you.”

“It’s another planet that needs to be freed from the oppression of the Empire,” Cassian shrugged, hoping to convince himself and Galen that this meant nothing more to him than any other mission. “Everywhere is someone’s home. It’s why the Alliance fights. You should rest up, it won’t be long until we’re there. Jyn will come to you when she’s ready… she just needs time.”

Galen nodded, and pushed himself up from the bench and headed towards his bunk on the opposite side of the room. “I hope we still have time.”

A beat after the door to Galen’s bunk slid closed, Jyn’s opened and she stuck her head out and looked around before stepping out towards where Cassian sat.

“Are you avoiding him?” Cassian disconnected the docs from the datapad. 

“Not entirely,” she looked sheepish. “It was just a lot easier when he was lying in a medical bed. It seems more… real, now that he’s up and walking. Anyway, you were talking and I didn’t want to interrupt.”

Cassian snorted. Jyn could lie her way out of many things, but this wasn’t one of them. He didn’t want to push her on it. “Do you feel better?”

She blushed as he rose to put his arms around her. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to fall asleep when there’s so much to get ready. I promise I’ll be more useful when we get there.”

“Don’t be sorry, I’d rather you took whatever rest you can get.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head.

“For something half the size of my thumb,” she mumbled against his chest. “It seems to need a lot of my energy.”

Cassian was struck by the image. He could picture an actual baby - had of course seen them, even held little Poe Dameron when he was a newborn - and that image alone had been terrifyingly small and fragile in his mind. How Jyn had just described it made his lungs tighten. The alarm in his mind rang loud again as he tried to imagine something so _tiny_ and he swallowed back the surge of fear in his throat.

“Where did you learn that?” He asked when he could trust his voice again.

Jyn pulled back to look at him, green eyes scanning him and he knew she could see his trepidation. “The medics gave me a datapad full of information, Alliance standard apparently. I haven’t got very far with it though, it was frightening enough reading about what’s going on _now_ , never mind what I have to look forward to.”

She chewed her bottom lip, a sure sign of her fear, and he tried to forget his own for her sake. “Come on, let’s go rest for a while.”

“I just apologised for doing that,” she grinned. “Are you sure you’re not just trying to get me into bed?”

He chuckled. “As much as I would like to, I really did mean rest.” He gathered up the datapads. “Besides, we need to go over our cover stories, and there isn’t long.”

He let Jyn, smiling, pull him towards their bunk.

 

Bodhi’s call had woken Jyn from a deep sleep, something she hadn’t thought she would even get close to but her body had insisted on it, as if it wanted her to sleep and never wake up. Cassian was already up and she wanted to curse him for not waking her when they were close to Fest.

She made it up to the cockpit in time to hear Cassian respond to the calls from Imperial security. He spoke in Festian first, just like a local coming home to find the Empire controlling access to his planet would do. Jyn could only pick out odd words and felt a little stunned at the speed with which he spoke. Her knowledge of the language was limited to words and short phrases spoken slowly for her to pick up, nothing like the rapid fluidity with which he spoke to the Imperials. He switched to Basic when they made it clear that they would not tolerate anything else and feigned sudden understanding. Once they granted access to land, Cassian ordered Galen and Bodhi to hide as he took control of the ship. 

The smuggling hatches were invisible from the outside. It took just the right pressure in the exact right spot to get them to flip open. One each for Bodhi and Galen, and the others filled with weapons and identifying materials. Jyn didn’t envy what Bodhi and her father would have to endure as the hatches were barely big enough to hold them. She squeezed Galen’s hand once before closing him in, but Bodhi needed a little more soothing.

“Just breathe, Bodhi.” She urged and placed her hand on his chest. “It won’t be long.”

“Won’t be long until I run out of air,” he grumbled, but nodded at her to close the hatch. 

 

"Are you ready?" Jyn asked when the ship finally touched down and Cassian climbed down the ladder from the cockpit. She had let her hair out of it's tie and shook it loose around her shoulders as a closer match to her scandocs, and had wrapped herself in soft, warm layers that looked a lot more civilian than her usual gear, more fitting for a public servant from Coruscant. Cassian too had changed into something similar; a soft grey blanket-like scarf wrapped around him covering half his torso. 

He nodded as he did a final scan of the hold for errant weapons. Jyn could see the tightness in his jaw, and could see the reality of where they were had just hit him. “Hey,” she said as she reached out to touch his face, longing to dissolve his tension. “We’ve got this. I’m with you.”

He nodded, and turned his head to kiss her palm. “Yeah. We’ll be fine.” Cassian leaned forward and stole a kiss from her, a promise, just as a loud knock on the bay door reverberated through the ship. He hit the control on the wall to open the doors, and suddenly Jyn was glad for the warm layers as a gust of cold air invaded the ship, followed by three Stormtroopers. 

The feeling hit Jyn as quickly as the cold air had. Not fear, not for herself, but something just as primal. That white armour was linked to a dozen bad memories and traumas, but as individuals she didn’t find ‘troopers to be particularly fearsome. This was something new: the first challenge to her baby’s safety. _I can protect us,_ her own words to Cassian rang in her ears, so easily said when she was safe on base. Jyn bit the inside of her cheek and took a deep breath and tried to reclaim her mind from the swirl of hormones. If anything happened, she knew, she could take these three on herself without breaking a sweat.

“Scan docs,” grunted the first ‘trooper. One climbed up the ladder to the cockpit while the other poked around the hold and bunks. Cassian handed over their cards, and Jyn slipped into character by clinging to his arm.

“Names?” The ‘trooper asked even as he scanned their IDs with a handheld device. 

“Rafa and Nora Ancar,” said Cassian. “We’ve travelled from Coruscant.”

“Business here?” 

“I’m from here, though it’s been a long time since I’ve been back. My parents took me to Coruscant as a child so they could serve the Empire.” Jyn envied the calmness in his voice; she had never quite been able to hide herself the way Cassian could. “My wife very much wanted to see Fest - one last adventure before we start our family.”

Jyn gave a bright smile and a nod, though the ‘trooper just grunted as he scrolled through the very fake information that appeared on his scanner. 

“Sir,” the second ‘trooper approached them as the third climbed down from the cockpit. “No sign of anything untoward, but there are smuggling hatches in the walls.”

Jyn’s heart skipped a beat, though she kept her smile in place. The ‘trooper reached out and knocked his fist against the corner of a panel which then popped open, thankfully revealing nothing. She didn’t dare steal a glance to the floor beneath her feet; the panels under which Bodhi and her father hid were nowhere near as obvious as the one the ‘trooper had found.

The commander turned back to them. “Anything to tell us?”

Cassian shrugged and kept his voice light. “I had no idea there was anything there. I bought this ship on Tattooine, for a fair price. The seller did say it was an old spice smuggling ship, but you’re not going to find an Imperial-class transport for sale in Mos Eisley. You’re welcome to search.”

“This is really the best we could find, on an Imperial salary.” Jyn laughed, a false echo of herself. “On two Imperial salaries no less!”

The ‘trooper was quiet for a moment, unreadable behind his mask, before he nodded to his colleague. “Check the other panels, just in case anything was left behind.” He turned back to Jyn and Cassian. “Yeah, tell me about it - I’ve heard what the bureaucrats on Corsucant are bringing in while the rest of us make minimum. Look, be careful with the locals, stick to the town, and stay out of trouble - you’ll be sick of the snow and praying to get back to civilisation within a week, I know I was.”

The other ‘trooper popped open each panel on the wall with a fist, revealing nothing more than some old blankets in one hatch. The three Stormtroopers shrugged, the commander spoke into his comms, and they traipsed back down the ramp.

Jyn took a deep breath when they were out of sight, and Cassian slapped the control to raise the ramp again. Her cheeks felt like ice despite her sped up heartbeat. As soon as the ramp slammed shut, she kicked her heel into the right spot on the panel below her to reveal Bodhi. His eyes were scrunched shut and he took a heaving breath as soon as the light hit him. Cassian opened the other panel, and Galen sat up stiffly and accepted Cassian’s hand to help him out.

“We’re safe?” Asked Bodhi as he climbed out and kicked the panel shut as if he never wanted to see that hatch again.

“We’re allowed to be here,” Cassian popped open another hatch in the floor and pulled out a stash of weaponry. “That’s a start for now. It’s easier to fool a few Stormtroopers with good IDs than it will be to get the locals to trust us.”

“You don’t think we can do it?” Galen asked as he stepped up close to Jyn. She could see the darkness in Cassian’s eyes, how affected he was just by seeing ‘troopers here, by having to lie and ask their permission to land where he was born, where his mother had died and was buried. She didn’t doubt him at all when he spoke next, and felt fire flare in her gut at his voice.

“I think no matter what happens," he said as he checked his rifle, "we’re not leaving here until those bastards are stopped.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a tough chapter - just getting them from base to Fest without them discussing all of their issues before the real story has even got going was hard!
> 
> Next up: Fest and the rebels!


	4. Chapter 4

From the landing pad on top of the hill, looking down into the valley, the main town of Fest looked much the same as Cassian remembered, which was less than comforting given that over twenty years had passed and yet everything seemed to have frozen in place. You had to look closely to see the signs of decay - half the buildings were empty, windows covered with boards instead of glass, homes missing a roof or wall. Concrete scarred by blaster fire.

Once, his father had told him when he was very young, Fest had been a vibrant mining colony attracting trade from as far as the Core. The ores and minerals that could be found in the mountains were the backbone of their economy, vital in the manufacture of ships.

And then the Galactic Republic came, and pillaged the mountains, and built their factories. Pollution belched into the air, men who had come from generations of miners were suddenly out of work, and the Clones dealt brutal punishment to anyone who dared speak out.

So far from the Core, not even a blip on anyone’s radar. The presence of ‘troopers and eventually Imperials scared off any traders who had been willing to travel so far in the first place. The younger generation started to leave in search of work and adventure, and by the time the attempted uprising happened Fest’s population had dwindled to families and grandparents and any young men that hadn’t left by that point died in the battle.

Cassian remembered going hungry often, after his father died.

The ‘troopers who had inspected the ship had travelled by speeder and he watched as they zipped down through the forest that covered the hillside, reappearing on the edge of town and passing through it. The factories and wherever the Empire had holed up their soldiers would be beyond the ridge at the other end of town. Better than them being stationed right among the remaining locals, he supposed. There would at least be some space to hide right out in the open.

Above, the sky was the dark blue and purple of his dreams, cloudless, a million stars scattered like crystals and a band of glowing green light split the sky like a crack in glass, like light shining through from another world above them. The half-moon hung low, as if it could be touched from the top of the eastern mountains. He could taste the bitterness of ice in the air, and the ground was thick with frozen, compacted snow. He felt Jyn’s gloved hand slide into his own and she pressed close to his side.

“It’s beautiful, Cassian.”

Suddenly for all his worry about her being here, he was glad for it. 

 

 _We’re being followed_ , Cassian was sure by the time they were halfway down the path into the valley. The snow was packed thickly under their feet, and beyond their four treads he could hear others somewhere through the trees. From the way Jyn’s eyes darted to the tree line every few seconds he was sure she had picked up on it too.

“Um, Cassian?” Bodhi whispered along side him. “Are we…?”

Cassian nodded and kept his hands loose at his sides, resisting the urge to give his blaster a reassuring touch. “Just keep walking.” he muttered, "we need these people on our side."

“We’ll follow your lead,” said Galen quietly. 

He had played in these forests with his friends as a child, thrown rocks at passing Clones from high in the trees (before their mothers had stopped letting them out at all).

At the sound of a rifle being primed from behind them, Cassian spun and saw two men - hooded and their faces covered by scarves - step out from the trees. When he turned back, another two had stepped out in front.  
“On your knees, hands raised.” Ordered one of them. Cassian nodded, and complied, waiting for the others to follow him. The snow soaked his knees instantly, the ice burning the flesh. Jyn’s face was a picture of defiant rage, cheeks flushed from the cold and lips pouted in annoyance, but she lowered softly to a kneel, and Bodhi and Galen followed suit.

The man who had spoken pulled down his scarf, revealing a young face framed by dark curls, dark eyes and a broad nose. _Bazan_ , Cassian assumed. “You,” he said as he pointed the barrel of his rifle at Galen. “Have some explaining to do.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Bazan nodded at another rebel who raised his hand and swiped Galen hard enough across the face that his head snapped to the side and he fell to his hands to support himself. Jyn surged up with a yell and Cassian had to grab her by the arms and pull her back against him before the rebels could subdue her with the butt of a rifle or worse. She was breathing heavily in Cassian’s grasp as Galen recovered. 

“You were with those thieves,” said Bazan, “those _pirates._ Have you come back to steal more from us?”

“I was their prisoner.” Galen spoke calmly despite the blood on his lip.

Bazan crouched down in front of him. Cassian could feel the anger flare in Jyn, and squeezed her arms. _Patience,_ he wanted to say. He knew she trusted him enough to make decisions, but when those she loved were threatened her passion could overtake her. Bodhi’s gaze flickered quickly from one rebel to another.

“Prisoner?” Bazan grabbed Galen’s face. “Tell me, when you broke free did you manage to take our money with you? Because I can’t think of another reason to keep you alive.”

“Bazan! What are you doing?”

Cassian turned to see an older man, tall and broad and with a thick beard and the same broad nose as Bazan, approach the group. His heart dropped into his stomach. After so long, he hadn’t expected to recognise anyone so quickly, if at all. _Bialar._ The group of young rebels seemed to become unsteady all of a sudden, like children caught playing at something dangerous.

“It’s the pirates again, Father. Look, this one - ”

“They don’t look like pirates to me, Bazan. And what are you doing out here in the open, flaunting those rifles? If the ‘troopers see you they will have your heads, and probably the rest of us too. Are you stupid?”

“To hell with them,” Bazan spat as he rose and stepped away from Galen. Bodhi took the chance to move in close and check that he was alright, and Jyn softened a little where Cassian’s hands held her back. “We’re not afraid of them, like you.”

Bialar lunged forward, and none of the rebels dared stop him. “You won’t be happy until you get us all killed, boy.”

Father and son squared up, nose to nose. Cassian weighed his options. He could see the others shivering in the cold, his own knees numb from the ice below them. He wanted Jyn far from here, somewhere warm and away from the boy with a gun who thought it made him a man. Honesty, he decided, was going to work in his favour for once.

“Listen to him, Bazan,” he spoke in Festian. “Your father speaks from experience. He’s buried more than enough people here.”

 

“Who are you?” Bialar asked in Festian, his eyes squinting as he scanned Cassian’s face. He didn’t answer though, he just stared back at Bialar. _You’re so like your father, little Cassian. Look at him, Jeron - he looks just like you did when we were boys._ His eyes widened, recognition and shock and grief all passing over his features.

“Cassian Andor?” Bialar’s voice was soft. Cassian let go of Jyn’s arms and placed a reassuring hand low on her back as she reached out to her father. 

Cassian nodded. If Bazan was a rebel, and Bialar could control him, then Bialar was who they needed on their side. 

The man he had once called _uncle_ , who he hadn’t seen since he was six years old, smiled.

“Bazan,” he ordered, “tell your friends to stand down.”

“But father - ”

“Now, boy,” Bialar snarled. “These people are _family_.”

Bazan glared at his father, nose wrinkled like a petulant child not getting his way, before he cocked his head at his men. The rebels slung their rifles over their shoulders. Jyn looked up to Cassian, her brow creased in a question, and he stroked his thumb along her lower back. Galen and Bodhi looked to him for reassurance and he nodded. _I’ll explain everything,_ he wanted to say. He stood, and the others followed. His knees were numb from the cold and nearly buckled beneath him. He was taller than Bialar now, and the thought almost made him laugh.

“Why do I feel like you didn’t come here just to see your old home again?” Bialar asked as he looked at group.

“I’ll tell you everything,” Cassian promised, “if you can give us somewhere to stay.”

Bialar smiled, his eyes still wide with disbelief. “Bazan, stay with your friends tonight. I need your room.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is slightly late and a bit shorter! Hurray for shitty mental health :/ It's all getting better though! 
> 
> Coming up: Cassian talks to his 'uncle', the crew finds out what the Empire are up to on Fest, and plans are made for sabotage!


	5. Chapter 5

The house they were led to was small and warm and sheltered from the chill outside. It was empty bar worn furniture and some old books and tools and parts lying around. Jyn wondered if it was ever a family home, if this was something like what Cassian grew up with. She wanted to ask him, but not in front of the others. Four years hadn’t shaken either of them of their need for privacy and guardedness, except with each other.

They had left the other rebels behind them, the young men - boys, really - had disappeared back off into the trees, no doubt to lick their wounds and talk up dreams of destroying the Empire. Jyn had met plenty of young men like Bazan when she was a Partisan - boys on the cusp of manhood who thought they had what it took to fight a war but ran at the first sniff of death. She hoped for his sake, and for Fest’s sake, that he reached maturity in time and didn’t do anything stupid.

Jyn felt her knees begin to unfreeze and dry off and the chill began to fade from her bones, where they sat on blankets on the floor close to the fire in the hearth. Bialar served them all tea in cracked cups, along with a shot of something clear that smelt like it could strip grease from a rifle. She ignored it, as did Bodhi - in the last few years she had watched him learn the hard way that while alcohol numbed his anxiety, it only worsened when the effects faded. Cassian and Galen both downed their shots and grimaced. She took a sip of the sweet tea and felt the heat warm her from the inside out. The flickering light from the hearth made the room seem ominous. Her father looked like a corpse, with his sunken cheeks and the hollow of his missing eye. Bodhi’s gaze was distant, as it often was, and she nudged his knee with her own to shake him out of it. He blinked rapidly and refocused his eyes on the room around him.

Bialar joined them and downed his own shot before pouring himself another from the bottle he carried. “Can it be that the Alliance has finally shown an interest in the Outer Rim?” His accent was stronger than Cassian’s, Jyn thought, and she assumed he spoke in Basic purely for their benefit. “Twenty years since the last insurgency and no one has come since.”

“When Galen was rescued from the pirates, he told us what was happening here.” Cassian said. The name Erso had not passed his lips, even when he introduced all of them to Bialar, and for that Jyn was thankful. As much as she was proud to finally bear her real name, it had caused plenty of trouble in the past, and you never knew where the name _Galen Erso_ would inspire a murderous reaction.

“You never thought of coming back?” Bialar swirled the liquid in his glass before downing the shot. “To see what was left?”

Cassian shrugged, but Jyn could read the tension behind his blank facade. He had wanted to come back, so many times. It was one of the secrets he had shared only with her, of how he wanted to come back and see what was left. “There was nothing left, when you sent me away. Just you and a handful of others against a battalion of Clones. You were the one who told me to never look back, remember?”

Bialar stared into his glass. “True. And I suppose I was always glad that you never did. But what help does the Alliance hope to offer now?”

“Do you know what the Empire is building here?” Jyn asked.

Bialar shook his head. “When you were a child, Cassian, they mined the mountains for ores and minerals and set up factories to process them and build ship parts. Now there is nothing left to mine but still here they are. Every few weeks, a ships arrives to drop supplies and take away crates of whatever they are making in the factories. We haven’t been able to get close enough to see.”

“Do they give you trouble?” Cassian’s eyes were dark, the firelight reflected in them. 

“Trouble?” Bialar barked out a laugh. “They’ve already taken everything they could, they did that back when there was still a Republic. For twenty years, we did everything we could to rebuild our town. Two years ago they came back, built new factories, closed off our trade, and within six months we were back under their rule again. They leave us be as long as we stay out of their way. We’re nothing to them.”

“So why the weapons? Your son was trying to buy enough from the pirates for an army.” Galen spoke softly. 

“My son is a fool,” growled Bialar. “I knew what those pirates were doing, they’re not the first to come out here expecting everyone in the Outer Rim to be an easy target. So I let Bazan get in over his head, to teach him a lesson. He thinks he can round up every person left on this planet, give them a cheap rifle and plant a few bombs and that will rid us of the Empire forever. History means nothing to him.” 

“Why not? I mean, why not attack? Or at least destroy the factories?” Bodhi asked as his hands plucked at this sleeves.

Bialar shook his head, but it was Cassian who answered. “The last time there was an uprising, the Clones retaliated, and not just against the actual rebels. Half the village was murdered, just to teach us a lesson.” His voice stayed low and measured, but Jyn had heard the story told with emotion before. His mother had been one of the founding members of the Resistance, an icon in his eyes, and one of many to die in the slaughter. _She was beautiful, Jyn,_ he had whispered against her neck when they were twined together in their bed where the outside world wouldn’t hear their secrets, _She spoke with so much passion that everyone listened. She would have adored you._

Bodhi’s lips formed a soundless ‘oh’ and he looked at the floor. “So… what are we going to do here then?”

“Do?” Bialar laughed. “We don’t matter to those in the Core. Why would the Alliance waste resources to help us?”

Jyn understood, as much as she disagreed. The further one travelled from the Core, the less a part of the same galaxy you felt. “It’s the right thing to do. We’ll find something, some way.” Her husband looked at her with pride, and she gave him a small smile. He wanted so much to help, she knew, and she wanted nothing more than to give him his world back. She didn’t have that same attachment to a place or a community. On Lahmu her parents had kept to themselves, and the Partisans weren’t attached to a location, but she understood the need to fight back, to claim something as your own against the wave of the Empire.

“Give us a few days to gather information,” Cassian said to Bialar, “Once we know what the Empire is doing here we’ll find away to win the town back.”

 

 

Bodhi sat on the edge of the small cot, which sat alongside it’s twin with only a small gap between them. The room was homely, and despite the difference in climate it reminded him somewhat of Jedha. His mother had always kept a neat spare room for her sisters and his cousins, who were forever fighting and needing to get away from their own homes. Bodhi thought this was what his mother’s precious spare room would look like now: a place formerly cared for and shown off with pride now layered with dust. He wondered briefly if Bialar’s wife, or whoever Bazan’s mother was, had created this with the same intention as his own mother. Perhaps it had been Bialar himself, though he didn’t strike Bodhi as much of a homemaker. 

He was alone in a room with Galen Erso. _Wonderful._ They had been alone in the cockpit of the ship but at least then he had flying to distract him, questions about the ship and hyperspace and physics had come easily to cancel out the silence between them. Now his only option was to jump onto his own bed and pretend to sleep. He chose confrontation instead.

“This is weird.” He said, when Galen sat on the cot opposite. “No offence, I mean… this really isn’t what I expected to happen, ever.”

“Which part?” Galen asked as he unlaced his boots.

“Getting dragged to weird planets where my life is in danger? Stormtroopers? That happens all the time, usually with your daughter.” He shook his head. “This, this is weird: you and me, in some stranger’s spare bedroom on an Imperial occupied planet. You, period. Alive.”

Galen chuckled. “Having been alive all this time, I suppose I forget how much of a shock it can be.” He reached across and patted Bodhi’s knee. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here for me to surprise, Bodhi. I’ve always wanted to tell you how sorry I was.”

Bodhi blinked. “Sorry?”

“Sorry for putting you at risk. It was the selfish act of a desperate man, and if I hadn’t found you I would have tried to get someone else to listen to me.” 

“It… I never thought of it like that. I never thought you were being selfish, Galen. I don’t think it occurred to me… I mean, you did what you did because you wanted to stop the Death Star, how could that be selfish?” 

Galen shook his head. “Asking you to risk your life to fix my mistakes, it felt selfish. Back then I couldn’t have bore the thought that someone else would have died in my name.”

Bodhi felt something shift inside of him, a hole in his chest that let out the darkness and sadness and anger he kept locked away. He took a moment, remembered the exercises that Chirrut had taught him after his temper and depression had cost him his dream of flying X-Wings. _You sent me to Saw,_ said the darkness, _to Bor Gullet. And I’ll still only ever be a cargo pilot because of it._ He pinched his eyes shut and counted his breaths. “It wasn’t - ” he snapped, then took a deep breath and lowered his voice, “it wasn’t just about you, Galen. It was my choice.”

“And do you regret it?”

Bodhi didn’t want to say the word ‘sometimes’ out loud. He had hated the Empire. He knew deep down he did the right thing. But ‘sometimes’ everything felt a little too dark, his own mind a little too scary and bleak and fractured, and wondered if things would have been easier if he had never met Galen Erso. And then guilt would roll in his stomach for even thinking it. Instead he shrugged and started to pull off his boots. “It was my choice,” he repeated, “It’s not like I can go back and change anything.”

Without another word, Bodhi climbed into his cot and faced the wall. He listened to the rustling of Galen climbing into his own bed and the way his breathing deepened and slowed and turned into light snores. Bodhi closed his eyes tight, pictured the lake on Jedha where he and his cousins had played as children, and counted all the things he could hear and smell and feel until his brain gave into sleep.

 

 

Jyn curled around herself in the bed with her back to the wall. She could hear Cassian talking to Bialar downstairs, voices low and mumbling through the thin walls and floor; no tone or content obvious to her. Sleep threatened to take her now that she was lying down again but she refused to give in until Cassian joined her and she could make sure he was okay. 

There was a blaster under her pillow. She trusted _Cassian,_ couldn’t not trust him after everything. That didn’t mean she was going to trust Bialar.

The room was lit only by the dim yellow glow of the bedside table, revealing nothing but bare walls and the door to a small basic ‘fresher in the corner. It reminded Jyn of a dozen other rooms, hotels and safe houses on distant planets. She thought of all the times they had made themselves at home in strange places, sharing a bed and taking full advantage of the time together as if it were the first time all over again. War meant grabbing whatever opportunities you could in case it was the last chance. She thought back to their first night together, in a tiny bunk on an Alliance base in the middle of nowhere, and how daunting it had seemed to just give herself to him. _Four years ago,_ she wrapped her arms around her middle and thought of life instead of death for once, _I never would have thought we would have ended up here._

She warmed herself with that thought, and closed her eyes as one hand sought the crystal around her neck. She ran her thumb over the side where it had been neatly sliced and found peace in the rhythm of her flesh running up and down the smoothness of it - still so new and strange, after these last few months - as the natural rough edge dug into her palm. There was a vibration, something Chirrut had taught her to become aware of, that started at the top of her head and ran down her spine. _The Force_ , he had said, _you don’t have to be a Jedi just to be aware of it._ His lessons in meditation had helped when the nightmares and anger and grief and trauma became too much after Scarif. Jyn slipped into the sensation of it, and noticed how it felt _different_ now, how there seemed to be a second thread of energy, faint, alongside that which had become familiar. She tried to grasp it, but it was like having something in the corner of her vision that moved out of sight just as she tried to focus on it. It was terrifying and comforting at the same time.

When she next opened her eyes Cassian was sat on the edge of bed, already dressed for sleep and priming his blaster which he set on the bedside table. Jyn sighed and reached out to run her hand down his arm.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you.” He slid in beside her, letting the chill of the room under the blankets briefly. 

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” she said, and pulled his arms to arrange him to her liking, one arm under her head, the other wrapped around her to fight off the cold he had brought into the bed. “I was waiting for you. Tell me you’re ok.” She spoke against his neck as his legs wrapped with hers.

“I’m ok,” he said as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head and his body began to warm against her.

Jyn snorted. “Now the truth.”

He huffed out a sigh. “I don’t know. Is that any better?”

“Tell me how I can help.”

“You’re here. You’re safe. That’s enough for me.” 

“And if I didn't know you so well I’d believe that.” She lifted her head to look up at him, traced the edges of his beard with her fingertips. “When you figure out what you’re feeling…”

“I’ll tell you,” he said and grasped her hand in his, kissing her fingertips. “I promise. But I mean it, as long as you’re safe,” he mouth quirked into a quick smile before he turned serious again, “As long as you’re both safe…”

Jyn nodded, and kissed her husband slow and deeply as she had wanted to do since they were last alone in a bed together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, Bodhi :( The poor boy just wanted to fly X-Wings and maybe hook up with a cute pilot and I've gone and given him emotional trauma instead.
> 
> I live for feedback! You're all wonderful for sticking with me this far.


End file.
